The Night Terror
by BlackMajjicDuchess
Summary: This is the SEQUEL to my story, "Pitch Black." The full summary is inside because if you don't read the first story, there's hella spoilers. This story centers on the serial killer known as the Night Terror, who in Pitch Black was a murderer of children in Konoha. First person. Major character deathage. Violence, coarse language, sexual situations, angst.
1. Title Page

**ATTENTION: This is the SEQUEL to "Pitch Black." The summary is on the NEXT page, because if you have not read Pitch Black, it will be rife with spoilers. **

**Again, this is a SEQUEL. It is ****_strongly recommended_**** that you read Pitch Black FIRST. You can find it here: /s/8392022/1/Pitch_Black**

Thanks to all my readers! Remember, if you like it, LET ME KNOW! Reviewing my stories, even something as simple as "I like it," or a friggin smiley face lets me know my work is enjoyable and, most importantly, keeps me writing. If you've got a second, please review!

~Duckess


	2. Summary

**Title:** The Night Terror

**Characters:** Hanabi Hyuuga

**Rated:** M for violence, coarse language, sexual situations, angst, character death, date rape.

**Synopsis:** Hanabi Hyuuga was a killer at eleven years old. Forced into the responsibilities as her family's heiress and father's gem, she had gained a twisted opinion of strength and human value. In Pitch Black, she murdered innocent young academy students to prove who was stronger. Her encounter with her sister and cousin left her arms crippled and negated her ability to use the Gentle Fist. Her days as a ninja were OVER, and so might as well have been her life. Without the Gentle Fist, what is a Hyuuga worth?

Hanabi blames her solitude on... well, the world, but mainly her cousin Neji. After all, it was he who stripped her of the chakra control in her hands. It's her father's fault for ignoring her once she proved herself useless. It was Hinata's fault that she had done nothing. Hanabi was betrayed.

And now, Hanabi is going to pay them _all_ back.


	3. Game On

**A/N:** To promote the absolute insanity that is this memoir of a twisted, warped little girl that became a twisted, warped woman, I'm foregoing authors' notes for the entire story. It's also written rather disjointedly on purpose. She's supposed to be batshit crazy and I want you to feel that, so I'm leaving me out of it entirely. You might be a little confused sometimes, but that's supposed to happen. Pay attention to chapter names. That should help.

* * *

_Ten years have passed since the events in "Pitch Black."_

* * *

My name is Night Terror. They used to call me Hanabi.

I say 'used to' because I'm not the same as I once was. I was the star of the show. I was my father's favorite. I was the greatest Shinobi on the planet, I'm sure of it. I had everything exactly the way I wanted it. People feared and respected me by the time I was eleven years old. Yeah, that's the description of the ultimate badass ninja which was me. I say this in past tense for a reason.

Because I was betrayed.

My cousin (if you want to call him that… I call him Fuckass, but that's just me), Neji "Fuckass" Hyuuga, used some sort of crazy fucked up jutsu to rip my arms to shreds. Yep. You read me right. He sent his raping chakra through my hands and blasted through my tenketsu all the way to my elbows. Both of my hands. Now I can't even use chakra the way a ninja ought to. Hand signs are meaningless. Worse, I can't even use the Gentle Fist.

Hm. Let me back up a bit. In case you don't know anything about the Hyuuga family, we're a bunch of stuck up assholes who have this special way of fighting. It's called the Gentle Fist. The basic premise is that we have the most amazing control over chakra, both ours and any other person's. We can see another person's chakra network using a special eye jutsu known as the Byakugan. Also, if one is skilled enough, they can release chakra from any point in their body. But what we are most known for is our fighting style, the Gentle Fist. We use it to insert a little of our own chakra into the body of our opponent to disrupt the flow of chakra. It's intensely painful, and if done correctly can cause death. No big deal.

Except that to me, it's a very big deal. A huge fucking deal. Because Fuckass took that from me. Without the use of the chakra that should be in my hands, I no longer have a gentle fist. In fact, what I really have is a pair of useless, bony claws that I stuff into pretty black gloves that hurt like the fires of hell. My forearms and hands are constantly in searing pain. I get headaches from it, it hurts that bad. I've been seeing doctors since then, but nothing helps. I'm a lost cause. My father even took me to see the best medics in the other great villages while the Leaf Village was destroyed by Akatsuki. Back then I thought that he still loved me, but it turns out it was just his desperate attempt to keep me from humliating the great Hyuuga family.

I have a sister, you might care to know. Her name is Hinata Hyuuga. She gets to keep our name because my father loves her more now. I'm an even greater disappointment than she used to be because even though she's weaker than me, at least she can use her chakra. I'm more useless than Rock Lee now. At least, that's what he says when he thinks I can't hear. He likes to pretend I'm invisible now. I embarrass him. He dotes on my darling, sweet older sister because she's going to be the head of the family when Father is gone. What will happen to me? I don't think anyone cares.

But I care.

I'll tell you what will happen to me. I'm going to get my revenge. I'm going to take everything that means anything to my family away from them. I'm going to destroy them all myself. And when it's all over, I'm going to piss on their ashes and laugh while I drink in celebration with Death himself. I hope everyone knows it's me, too. I hope the whole world knows what they did. I want them to kiss my feet and apologize, but I won't accept it. I'll never forgive them.

Fuck this world and everyone in it. I worked hard for everything I had, and now _she_ has it instead. Hinata, the Great Disappointment. Fuck her, too.

I know all about her little crush on the great hero, Naruto Uzumaki. Hokage now, is he? Apparently 10 years ago he saved the world or some shit. There was this epic zombie ninja named Madara. He was the greatest Shinobi to have ever lived. Immortal and everything. I wanted to be that, someday. I still will. You just watch. I've been working even harder when no one is looking—which they aren't because they don't care about me anymore. I've got a surprise for them that is going to make them shit themselves and run screaming.

Anyway. Naruto and Hinata started dating after the war ended. They're all married and stuff now. Kids and everything. I'm going to change that. Then I'm going to kill her in front of father so that he knows how big of a mistake he made in setting me aside. Then I'm going to kill Father for being such a douche canoe.

And Fuckass? I'm going to kill him in one on one combat. He'll never see me coming. But before I do that, I'm going to rip out his chakra points one by one. Not the way he did it to me. With a knife. A dull one.

And then I'm going to slaughter my whole family because the Hyuugas are a messed up cesspool of arrogant pricks who don't care about you as a person, and it's their fault that I can't be the ninja I was always meant to be.

Game on, mother fucker. Game on.


	4. Dream

"_Hana! Hana? Hanahanahanahananananana!"_ _My sister, Hinata._

_ "Oh my god. What do you want?" _

_ "Let's go watch the fireworks together, Hana! We haven't gotten to spend any time together in a long time. I miss you so much!" She gave me a big hug._

_ "Okay, Hina. I love spending time with you. You're the bestest big sister a sister can have!" I kissed her cheek. "Can we get cakes?"_

_ "Of course we can get cakes! What kind?" Her smile was beautiful._

_ "Banana cakes! I love bananas!"_

_ "Of course, Hana. Bananas it is. Banana cakes shaped like bananas, with banana frosting and fresh bananas and cream."_

_ "Yay! I love you, Hina! You're the best!"_

_ We went to the fireworks. Banana cakes are delicious! Mother came, too. She looks so pretty when she wears kimonos. Her favorite one is green and white. I always loved it when she wore what she thought made her pretty. When she felt pretty she looked even prettier. My mother was the nicest woman on the face of the planet, and I swear she loved me best. She made the best banana cakes. Ever._

_Father and Neji threw a party when we came back. "Hana!" Neji shouted. He gave her a great big hug. "I know it's not your birthday for another 231 days, but I bought you this!" He gave me pair of blue bunny slippers. _

_I put them on immediately and squealed with joy. "Neji, you're the best cousin ever! I love you!" I gave him a big hug. He smiled and kissed me on the top of my head. _

_Father smiled and hugged me. "Welcome back my favoritest daughter in the entire world! I threw this party in your honor because you're so awesome. You're a wonderful fighter and the perfect daughter."_

_"I agree!" Hinata said. "I don't even mind because I love you too too much!" She hugged me again._

_"Aww, thanks everyone! You're the best! I have the best family in the whole wide world!"_


	5. Play Pretend

I woke up in complete and utter blackness. I loved the nighttime. Daylight felt like such a pathetic lie. Like, 'oh my gosh it's such a pretty day today! Let's all go dancing and pretend everything is puppies and sunshine and that the Hyuuga Girl is not one crazy fucked up bitch. Lalala fucking tralala.' I never turn the lights on in my room. I can see in the dark, bitch. What of it?

I sleep during the day now. No one even cares or notices. I get up at night and I go out into the world when it's black. That's where Night Terrors belong, after all. In the _night_. But I can't start killing again, not yet. My sister and Fuckass know my little dark secret, so I can't do anything drastic until I'm ready to kill them both.

So I crafted a sweet little lie. When people see me, I smile. I still never speak. If I open my mouth, pure evil will spew forth. If I say what I really want to say, the façade will crack. They'll know I'm lying, and I can't have that. So when they see me, I smile. I smile and sometimes I laugh on a rare occasion so they think I'm okay. I mope a little. They need to think I am sad so that they can feel sorry for me. If they feel sorry for me they will ignore me until it is too late. My sister sometimes wants to spend time with me because in a moment of weakness I told her that I wanted her to before Fuckass destroyed my arms while she watched and _did_ _nothing_. So when she comes to me to hang out, I let her sit there and talk to me. Sometimes I smile. Sometimes I nod. I pretend like I give a shit, and after a while she goes away. Father never comes to see me, but sometimes I try to pretend like I want him to, and I'll walk around in his presence and try to smile when it seems like he's looking my way. That's my daytime. During the day I pretend to be Hanabi Hyuuga, and they pretend to let me.

During the dark times I go outside, and I practice. They think they can cut a Hyuuga off from her chakra. I've got 361 tenketsu, bitches. Three hundred mother fucking sixty-one. Fuckass cut off 60 of them exactly, 30 in each arm. My arms are shrieking with pain, but they're really just singing about his death. They know it's coming. Watch me use the other 301 tenketsu to beat him bloody into the ground. I spend the time at night practicing how to use the other 301. It took me forever to make any functional use of them, but it's working. My rotation is not quite as easy as Fuckass' rotation or as pretty as my sister's, but it's working for me just fine. I need to do a spinning windmill kick to make it work, but in my mind that just makes me more awesome than Fuckass or my sister, because I do a better job with less chakra. Needless to say, I can do a pretty awesome spinning windmill kick rotation. I call it Eight Trigrams: Fuck Off. I find it to be pleasingly accurate. Hinata's got this thing with some lions she calls "Gentle Step" or some gay shit like that. I taught myself how to do Gentle "Fist" with my feet. I call it Nimble Foot. I don't think it's at all gentle, but I like to think it takes some skill. If I really feel like someone needs killing, I've learned how to make a chakra form like Hinata's lions, but mine look like dragons. Dragons pwn the hell out of any other animal in existence, period. I call that one Nimble Foot Art: Yin and Yang Dragons.

The other thing I do at night is walk around the walls of the Leaf Village. There are patrols around the walls, of course, but everyone knows the tragic tale of the poor little Hyuuga girl. I walk around like I've lost all my wits, wandering. They used to try to take me back to the house, but they've gotten used to me by now and just leave me be. That was the plan all along. Over a decade of wandering, I've installed quite a number of paper bombs within the walls. I was going to blow it up soon and let the crows pick at the carcass of Konoha.

You might wonder how I use paper bombs, since I can't detonate them with a hand sign. I infused them with chakra through my feet. Paper bombs can be detonated in several ways, though. The most common three ways are to time them, set them on fire, or detonate with a hand sign. Mine are the time-release variety. I've got them set to go off about a year from now. I'll be long gone by then.

In my quest for revenge, I've made friends with Naruto Uzumaki. And by made friends, I mean that he thinks I need his help so he tries to spend time with me, too, as a favor to his _lady_ wife. We've been friends for like, five years now, ever since they finally got married. When we hang out, he talks to me and tries to get me to talk back. I'm about to blow his mind.

Why? Because for the first time in ten years, I'm going to talk to someone. _Him_.


	6. Phase One

He picked me up at the house in the early evening. The way we hung out was that he'd come to escort me, and I'd lead the way to wherever I wanted to go. He'd talk the whole time about what was going on with him, and I'd smile and nod at the appropriate times in the conversation and pretend to give a damn. Tonight I had a plan. Phase one in my elegant scheme to destroy the Hyuuga family? Seduce the unflappable, head-over-heels-in-love-with-my-sister, best Hokage ever Naruto Uzumaki.

He seemed very confused when I led him to the front door of his old apartment. It was vacant now, but he still left some of his things there so that they didn't clutter up his other house. I knew better than he did that when he wanted time to himself, he still came here. This was his private place. Intimate. No one came here anymore except him. I knew that, and I wagered a guess that not even Hinata knew that he still more or less lived here. Love his wife he might, but being tied down all the time to spend time with her would never be in his nature. Naruto Uzumaki was everyone's toy, not just my sister's. His responsibilities were heavily divided between her, their demon spawn, the village, and his friends. More importantly, he still grieved for the friend he'd lost in the war. Sasuka Uchiha had been Naruto's pseudo gay obsession for his whole life. He was the friend that Naruto could not save. The friend who'd died by his own hand. The dead friend who haunted his thoughts and plagued his nightmares. I was going to use that.

Naruto shifted from foot to foot, trying not to look at me while we stood outside his door. I could definitely tell he was uncomfortable having me there. I looked at him and waited. When he spoke, he couldn't meet my eyes. I knew his thoughts were elsewhere. "Are you sure you want to go here, of all places?" I nodded and grinned. He took a few deep shaky breaths to steady his nerves and retrieved the key from an inside pocket. He unlocked the door and held it for me, ushering me inside.

I summoned all the charm and grace that I had. I was 21. I knew that my body was a woman's now. I'd never been with anyone, but I knew how it all was done and I wasn't afraid. I don't get scared anymore. My body tonight was just another ninja tool used to get what I want. A woman's weapon. I still needed some help, though. Naruto loved Hinata, and he would not betray her so easily. However, I knew that enough time had passed since he'd married her that he'd be past that "Honeymoon" stage and slightly bored with my dimwit sibling. Throw that in with some alcohol and some good old-fashioned grief, and I would win. I drew forth a bottle of sake from my pack and set it on the coffee table.

Naruto looked between the bottle and me. His expression darkened. "I don't want that," he told me.

"I… I… just want to talk," I said quietly, my face heating.

His jaw dropped and his eyes popped. Hooked. "Hanabi! You spoke!"

I smiled, acting like I was pleased with myself. I knew I had him now. "Yes. But I will only talk to you. You're my only friend."

The word "friend" was crack to this man. He fucking loved that word. He retrieved a couple of glasses from the cupboard and set them on the table. "Well," he said, offering a small smile. "I guess we need to celebrate your first words in a decade. Just one, though."

"Sure," I said.

He poured us each a tiny glass of the sake. We sat in silence for a moment, sipping. "What do you want to talk about?" he asked me.

"Loss," I said simply. He quirked an eyebrow in question. "You know what it's like to lose someone—" inner Night Terror celebrated a victory when my words caused him to drain the rest of his cup, "—as I know." I poured him another. This was going to be a piece of cake. What an idiot. "I lost my family heritage that night," I said mournfully, holding up my gloved hands. I didn't remove the gloves. It would have been dramatic, I'm sure, but I didn't think my skeletal hands would turn him on, and I deemed that to be more important. "I'm a failure as a ninja, and my whole family ignores me now. My father doesn't love me." He sipped.

"Hinata loves you," he said faithfully. "She spends time with you all the time."

"Hinata feels sorry for me," I said pitifully. "She feels bad now because she didn't spend time with me before." _Because she's a loser and didn't deserve to bask in my presence, let alone be my true sister._ Actually, it had crossed my mind a time or two that some lame ass branch family member had fathered Hinata. Probably Fuckass' bastard of a father. Or maybe someone's hidden retard son that they never spoke about. She can't have had the _exact_ same parents as I did. It was too hard to believe.

"Better late than never," he said with a grin, taking another tiny sip.

I smiled. "Perhaps. It is better than nothing." I refilled his cup. He apparently hadn't noticed that I had not touched mine. "I know you weep for loss. Who is it?" I knew very well, but I knew making him say it would have a profound effect on him.

He gazed darkly into his cup, swirling around. "Have you ever had someone in your life that you cared about, but for whatever reason it felt weird to say?"

"Yes. My father." Naruto drained his cup again, so I refilled it again. "He doesn't like emotions. Telling him I loved him only made him feel awkward." Actually, I never told my father that I loved him, because he forbade it when I was three. Eh. Minor detail.

"I had a friend… it wasn't like with your father. We were like brothers." He peered into the fathomless depths of his glass again, his gaze far away. "We hated each other at first. The girl I liked actually liked him way more than me. He was stronger than me, cooler than me, smarter than me, better looking. You name it. He had it and I didn't and I hated him for it. Then one day, I caught him hanging out by himself, looking sad. I realized he was just as lonely as I was. We didn't say to each other than we understood one another, but we did.

"We handled loneliness differently. I filled my life with friends and trying to be a good enough person to be noticed. He filled his life with hatred for the people responsible for taking away the people he cared about." He drained his cup again. I refilled it dutifully. "Every time we talked I'd try to get him to go about it my way. I wanted him to be my friend and make more friends to fill the void that losing his family had left in his heart. He'd just yell at me and tell me I didn't understand and that nothing else mattered but that he should kill everyone."

He sighed and slumped back in his chair, brooding, one hand still attached to his glass. I found that I actually liked the way that he looked when he was upset. It made him seem more human than the goofy, loud man I'd known him as. He took a deep breath. "You know, this stuff isn't half bad," he told me with a grin, swirling the contents once again. "It's actually making me feel better." He drained it again and held his glass out for more.

I obeyed without hesitation. "What happened to your friend?"

"His name was Sasuke. Sasuke Uchiha." I noticed with satisfaction that he was beginning to slur already.

"What happened to Sasuke?" I urged. I already knew the truth. Everyone did. I just wanted him to say it out loud so that he could hear it again and be miserable.

His eyes filled with tears and he bit his lip. He drained another glass and slammed the glass back down so hard it shattered. He didn't seem to notice, even though his hand was bleeding a little. I passed him mine. He drained that too and held it out for me to fill. I filled it. He stood, swaying on his feet just a little. He picked up the glass and went to the other room.

I grabbed a new bottle of sake and followed him. When I found him again, he was on the couch, leaning forward with his head in his hands, tears flowing freely. My heart leapt with joy. I so totally had this game all figured out. Apparently, getting a man drunk and sad so that you could fuck him was pretty easy. I'd have to remember that if I ever needed information in the future. I eased onto the couch next to him. He grabbed the bottle of sake from me and took a drink straight from the bottle. I laid an arm over his shoulder and rubbed his back as he took several deep breaths, shoulders heaving. "Naruto," I prodded quietly. "What happened to Sasuke?"

He lifted his head and stared into my eyes, blue eyes glittering with tears. "He died," he choked, his voice breaking. He dropped his head again, allowing it to loll to the side.

I recognized my cue. I wrapped one of my gloved hands around his head and pulled it tight to my chest, falling backward. He let himself be pulled and cried into my chest, every now and again taking another swig from the sake bottle. "Shh, Naruto. It's going to be all right." I stroked his hair and rubbed his back.

It wasn't long before he realized his face was buried in boobs. Men like boobs, as I was well aware. It was the most brilliant part of my plan. I saw his eyes wink open and admire my chest. Then he was nuzzling them, which I decided felt rather nice. His sobs slowed, and he loosed several heavy sighs as he tried to calm himself down. Then, realizing that it was my boobs that had calmed him down, he took it upon himself to kiss me.

Mission accomplished.

He was drunk and not very fun in bed. Besides that, it was my first time and didn't feel very nice. I liked the kissing and the boob-nuzzling a lot more. Oh well. The idea was to trap him into having sex with me to ruin Hinata's life, and I found it well worth the pain, which was minimalized by the screaming agony in my hands anyhow.

I made sure to stay there so he could find me in the morning when he was sober. I didn't want him to forget what we'd just done. I woke before he did, so I got to see the fruits of my labor. It was utterly satisfying. He woke slowly. When he realized he didn't have any clothes on, he sat up sharply, then whipped the sheet up so he could see underneath. Then he swore. A lot. Then he saw me and turned a very pretty shade of red. Then he swore even more. Then he dressed and hurried out of the apartment, leaving me there…

…laughing my ass off.


	7. Metamorphosis

I went to the pub, high on my victory, sat down and had a delicious beer. When it was time for me to pay, I told the bartender to go fuck himself and walked out. He tried to chase me down, but I kicked him to the ground instead. I could tell he wanted to do something about it, but instead he just walked away muttering something about 'damned arrogant, entitled ninjas think they can do anything.' I guess he figured a few bucks weren't worth getting his ass kicked over, though. _Wise_ man.

When I got home, I changed my clothes. No more pretty dolly kimonos. No more trying to please my family and make them think everything was all right. I put on the clothes I actually wanted to wear. Black, form fitting stretch pants, no shoes. Over that I wore a sleeveless tunic shirt, so dark blue it was almost black anyway. It had a V-neck and coattails that flared over my hips. Of course, I had my elbow length black gloves to hide my hideous, aching hands. I tied my hair back in a nice braid to keep it out my way for maximum ass kicking.

Back to being a ninja, and a better ninja than all the others combined. Fuck them. Fuck them all.

I found my father enjoying some tea in the dining room. I stood for a moment in the doorway, relishing the moment of surprise I was about to elicit. I leaned against the frame and crossed my arms. I watched him sip, wait, and sip some more. "Hello, Father," I purred.

His head whipped around in surprise. He hadn't heard my voice in ten years. I'm sure it was a bit of a shock. "Hanabi?" he choked out incredulously, sputtering on tea. He still had the cup in his hands.

I smirked. "No, Father. You killed Hanabi. I'm the Night Terror." I thoroughly enjoyed the look of terror on his face as realization hit him, right before I lashed out with my bare foot and smashed the cup into his face, bloodying his lip. I used the stupid trick Fuckass had used on me then and knocked him out with Nimble Foot by caressing the tenketsu in his forehead. Once he was passed out, I trussed him up in chains like the captured pig he was, arms in front of his body. I used chains for a specific reason, of course; Gentle Fist is a bitch when you're trying to restrain a Hyuuga. Then I gagged him and dragged him to the Hyuuga dojo.


	8. A Memory of Blood

_I stared at the boy in front of me, for he was still too young to be quite a man. Sixteen, maybe seventeen. He had the showings of a new beard growing in. A beard I was sure would be really awesome when it grew in completely. It was his eyes that I remembered best though. Brown, innocent, full of mischief yet shocked open in fear. Had we heard Hiashi Hyuuga correctly?_

_"Hanabi! Don't hesitate! Kill this boy or be killed. One of you will leave this room alive, and one will not. Don't disappoint me!"_

_I looked at my father. His face was cold. I guess I had heard him correctly. "Father," I said, my voice quivering, confident yet apprehensive. "I will do this thing. I just want to know, why?"_

_His face softened slightly. "It's a question that makes sense, so I will grant you the answer. When you're in a battle with an enemy, you don't get to yield or ask for a do-over. You're fighting for your life. When you're fighting to stay alive, you're fighting your strongest because you can't afford to lose. If you don't kill this boy, he will kill you. I promised him his freedom if he could."_

_He told this boy to kill me? Part of me hated my father for it. I couldn't believe my honorable father wanted me to die._

_Then the boy charged at me, shrieking a battle cry. Panic laced my system. I froze and could not move. Then there was a knife streaking toward me, aiming at my heart. At that instant I knew that this was for real, and I didn't have time to wonder about why my father had done it. All that mattered was that if I didn't move, I would die. I twirled out of reach, and then I focused. My Gentle Fist was flawless. I went on the offensive. Two palms, four palms, eight palms, sixteen palms, thirty-two palms, sixty-four palms, one hundred twenty-eight palms, two hundred fifty-six palms. I was about to unleash another barrage, but that was when the boy vomited up such an amount of blood that I staggered back in surprise. He crumpled over, twitching violently, coughing and sputtering up so much blood that the floor turned dark red. I watched in fascination as he died, unable to even protest, beg for mercy, or tell me how much he hated me. He just… died. _

_I don't even know how long I watched him die, just that my father's applause interrupted my daydreaming. "Very well done, Hanabi. You please me. Now remember that if you ever disappoint me, you, too will be cast out of the family like your pathetic sister, Hinata. Be sure to do whatever you need to do to become strong." He walked away, leaving me there with a dead boy in a pool of evacuated lifeblood._

_I was nine._


	9. Phase Two

This was going to be the fun part. I shoved my father face first into the dojo floor and shook him awake. He shrieked at me from behind the gag. I giggled at him. "Oh, Father," I cooed. "Surprised to see me after so long? Didn't you miss me? No?" I waited for him to answer, but I knew he wasn't going to. He couldn't with my gag in his mouth. "Alright then, I'll do all the talking. Ten years ago, I was your favorite child. Do you remember the special training you made me do?" I glared at him, waiting for a response. "Nod, Father. Yes, there you go. You told me to do whatever I needed to do to become strong. You told me that no one was ever at their strongest unless they were fighting to stay alive."

His eyes widened with disbelief. Yes, he was finally following where this was going now. "Ten years ago I killed eight of the academy's finest. I sneaked into their rooms at night and challenged them to a battle. When you're that age, you think you're invincible. They were greedy for bloodshed and like retards, they accepted. We went to Practice Field Beta, where the lights are, and we fought to the death. I won every battle. You'd have been proud of me, Father.

"They never captured the Night Terror. The Night Terror didn't attack me that night either. The Night Terror _was_ me. _Your_ _nephew_ and my disappointment of a sister confronted me, and then _your_ _nephew_ annihilated the tenketsu in my hands." I ripped off my gloves and showed him. "See what he did? Your precious Hana, pride of the Hyuuga family. The first member of the family to pull off Eight Trigrams 256 Palms—and I could do more, Father, so much more—the strongest member of the family at _ten_. _Years_. _Old_. Your damnable nephew ruined everything the night he took my hands from me.

"And what did you do? Did you even think about what really happened that night? Or did you just look at me like a broken weapon and drag me about the world to make a halfhearted attempt to fix it, only to throw it away when it wouldn't be fixed? Me. Discarded like a broken tool. Shot like an unwanted dog. I'm your _daughter_, you sick fuck. Your _best_ daughter. Oh how easy it is to forget that." Watching the tears start to roll down his face gave me shivers of pleasure.

The doors to the dojo burst off their hinges, splintering inward. My father turned his head just as I did to see, but I already knew. Hinata stood there, eyes blazing with fury, chest heaving with every breath she took. "You!" she screamed, her voice shaking with rage. "You miserable, treacherous _BITCH_! I will _kill_ you for this!"

I turned to face my father and smiled, a lazy, slow smile. "Aww, and now we're all together. This is just like old times, when I used to beat Hinata all the time to make you happy. I think you'll enjoy this then. Watch, Father. Watch me show you what I can do." I leaned in close to his ear and lowered my voice to a whisper. "And after I kill her, I'll kill you, too. Then you and your darling daughter can be together forever."

Hinata charged across the space and went for my face with an elbow, chakra sparking from every pore. Her face was a rictus of anger, eyes blind with hate. I dodged easily and crescent kicked her in the shoulder, releasing chakra. As she staggered to her knees, she scrambled backward, staring at me with new eyes. Fearful eyes.

I took a few steps toward her, swaggering. "I suppose you just noticed that I'm not the pushover you thought. I've been practicing, sister mine. My fuckass of a cousin took my Gentle Fist, but he couldn't take my feet, too. I've spent the last ten years developing the exact same dexterity with my feet. I call it the Nimble Foot. Care to put it to the test?" I took the Cat Stance, a readiness position for kicking attacks and dodging. It was my go-to move with the new style.

She clambered to her feet, her rage tempered by focus. All the better. I didn't want this to be easy or quick. She took the traditional Gentle Fist stance. The last time we'd faced each other, we'd been using the same technique. Not today. I was about to blow her mind. "Don't hold back, sister dear. I _will_ kill you if you do."

"We should have killed you ten years ago. I won't be making the same mistake again," she said bitterly, circling me, our father now ignored.

We rushed each other at the same instant. I kicked in rapid succession, just as fast as she blocked and tried to hit me with her palms. I aimed low, she blocked low. She aimed high, I blocked high. I swept at her feet, but she jumped, out of reach. She struck down as I was rising, but I dodged. She sank low and thrust upward with her palm, attempting to uppercut. I leaned backward to avoid it, then did a quick cut-down kick and nailed her on the top of the head. She went down face-first, hands splayed out, but then rolled away. She got to her feet, wiping blood off of her mouth.

The game changed then. She focused her chakra while I laughed at her, but the next move threw me off a bit, I'll admit. She made four shadow clones. It was not something I could do, and it made me pretty angry. I was sure it was something she had picked up from her Hokage husband. It was his specialty, after all.

"Eight trigrams, sixty four palms!" One of the clones rushed in, attempting to attack me with the Gentle Fist. I dodged, and swayed, but could not avoid them all. As that one was finishing up with the pressure building in me to avoid the many strikes, another clone rushed in. "Eight trigrams, sixty four palms!" I was not surprised, and more ready for the second one, and managed to avoid most of the hits. Again, though, as that one finished, another rushed in to take its place. The onslaught! By the time the four shadow clones had finished with me, I was aching in a hundred places and Hinata was coming at me with her Twin Lions.

Hinata herself I could handle, and that was when the game changed in my favor. I was accustomed to pain, and the chakra flow in my sides, ribs, and arms meant nothing to me. Hinata had not been aiming for my feet, and she had not quite considered that the daily, miserable reminder of the pain in my hands made the damage she dealt meaningless in the scheme of things. As her Lion roared past my face and I swung out of the way, it was my turn. "Nimble Foot Art: Eight Trigrams, 64 Soles!" _On her face!_ "Two soles!" One kick to the sternum, and a quick midair changeup to add another to her abdomen. "Four soles!" Shoulder, shoulder with a double jump kick. Land, chin and sternum again. "Eight soles!" Eight snap kicks with my right foot anchored. "Sixteen soles!" Twist, anchor left foot. Sixteen snap kicks with the right foot. "32 soles!" Twist, anchor right foot again. 32 snap kicks. "64 soles!" Bicycle kick, driving her backward until she was laid out in front of my father. (see: watch?v=SIe3k0R3Gjg 1:14 for snap kicks, 2:30 for bicycle kick) I didn't give her a chance to get up again. I lifted my foot high and drove my heel into the back of her neck, breaking her teeth on the floor. She shrieked in agony and whimpered, trapped beneath my bare foot.

"I'm appalled, Father. How could you replace me with this?" And then, I shot through her brain with my chakra, frying it instantly. Hinata went limp. I left her there and went back to my father. His face was already dead, emotionless. I felt a bizarre urge to let him speak, so I removed the gag.

He didn't oblige me with a response. He only sucked in a giant breath of air and fainted, keeling over sideways. I frowned. That would not do. I poked at him with my toes until he opened his eyes. When he had, I smiled at him. "What's the matter, Daddy?" I asked, sickly sweet. "You wanted one good, strong daughter to succeed you. I just invented a new Gentle Fist. I'm crippled, and I beat your firstborn. Don't you… love… me anymore?" I teased mercilessly, batting my eyelashes. "That was always how you showed your affection before. Whichever of the two of us beat the snot out of the other was the one who won your love. You even trained me to kill scared young boys for your sport to make me tougher. Did I come on a little too strong?" I pouted at him.

"_Monster_. You killed your own sister? Did she mean nothing to you?"

I laughed heartily. "She meant nothing to you first. She means less than nothing to me. These are her doing, too," I told him, holding out my fearsome claws for his inspection. "Yours, your nephew's, and hers," I reminded him, pointing to Hinata's cooling corpse with one of my bony fingers.

He shook his head, his eyes downcast to the floor. "This is all my fault. Just kill me and… and let Neji go."

"No. I saved the special hell for Neji," I cooed, smirking. "As for you…" I pulled a kunai from my pouch. "These claws of mine… they cost me everything. Your love, my strength, my whole life. And now, I want you to share the experience with me. I want you to know what it feels like for your whole life to leave you lonely… through the arms." I kissed him on the cheek, kicked him onto his back, and straddled his prostrate form. Then I opened up his arms from wrist to elbow in one long, smooth stroke, hot blood gushing out over my hands as I worked, his dying screams of pain music to my eager ears. Then I stood, hovering over him as his face paled. The screams quieted and his eyes rolled back into his head. Then he stopped moving.

I waited for more, but nothing else happened. The dojo had become quiet and still. I sighed. "Not as slow as I had in mind," I grumbled aloud to no one. "Oops."

Phase Two of my elegant plan was complete. On to Phase Three.


	10. Phase Three, or Not

I found my room and made a torch from one of the pillow cases. Then, I poured my lamp all over the floor and rubbed the torch in it. I pulled a lighter from my tool pouch and set the fuel soaked cloth aflame. Finally, I tossed the lighter to the floor and set my room on fire. There wasn't anything in there I was going to miss anyway. The Main Family house was burning, so I went on ahead and set the rest of the buildings on fire, too. Wouldn't want this building to get all lonely in its death throes. Standing at the gate—now locked behind me… wouldn't want anyone to escape, after all—to the house I'd grown up in, I turned back to give it a final farewell. It looked to be coming along quite nicely in its fiery death. I tossed the torch to the ground and turned around…

…and came face-to-face with Neji Hyuga.

May I just have a moment to say how incredibly pissed off it makes me that he's able to sneak up on me like that? That's how he destroyed my hands in the first place. No one should be allowed to be that catlike, especially not a dude. I glared at him, daring him to say something.

Neji wasn't Hinata, nor Hiashi. Neji had spent the first half of his existence being cold, emotionless. Neji was a true ninja. The entire grounds of the Hyuga estate was afire behind me. People were already beginning to scream and try to escape. Surely he understood that our family was in there, though whether he guessed Hinata was included or not, I'm not sure. Despite all that, his eyes never left me. His features were well schooled. Not even hate shone from those pale eyes.

"Cousin," I said sweetly, since it seemed he was not about to break the silence.

"Cousin," he greeted, toneless.

That was it. That was all we needed. We were alike in many ways, this cousin and I. We had known hatred, and loneliness, and had used it to make ourselves strong. We understood one another. But, we'd stationed ourselves on opposite sides of a bit of a family feud. He'd become Hinata's lap dog, holding on to some naïve hope that our family tradition of subjugating the lesser family members would be abolished and he'd be… what? An equal? Normal? Who knows. And I had fooled them all into thinking I was finished. I was decidedly _not_ finished.

We kind of just stared at each other for a long time. It was like we had a whole conversation just with our eyes.

_You killed them all, didn't you?_

_Yeah, I did._

_Hiashi, Hinata, the rest of the family?_

_Sure did._

_How in the fires of hell did you do that?_

_*shrug* It's a secret._

_Well, I'm not an idiot. Clearly you're stronger than we thought._

_Yes you are, and yes._

_I'll win this fight because you need to be stopped._

_You won't win this fight. I will kill you._

_Someone will be killed._

_Yes, this is a fight to the death._

And then we squared off. I'll spare you the details. It was a really, really long fight. Fuckass is actually a decent fighter, and he wasn't distracted by me sleeping with _his_ boyfriend (I actually don't know if he's gay or not. To my knowledge he's never had a girlfriend or a boyfriend). Honestly I think he's never had a lover simply because it would be distracting. Fuckass is a very focused guy. I pulled out every trick in my book. Fuckass had also learned some new things. He'd charge in on the offensive and I'd have no choice but to block and defend and dodge. Then I'd find my opening and charge in and he'd be forced to shield and evade and parry. Advance, retreat. Advance, retreat.

By the end of it, both of us were exhausted and panting, aching in hundreds of places. I was having trouble standing, as was he. We were back to a staring contest, neither really having the strength to continue, unwilling to make an attack and ready to defend, just in case. And then, something weird happened.

Neji Hyuga gave up.


	11. Revelation and The End

We were staring at each other, neither moving, and he randomly just sat down on the ground. He rested his arms on his knees, met my eyes across the space, and spoke. "You won, Hanabi. I'm done."

I was so shocked-and exhausted-that I sat down, too. "Yeah?"

"Everything I worked for just burned to the ground." I looked to the grounds of the Hyuuga estate. He was right. In the heat of the battle, neither of us had noticed that the buildings were smoldering. The stench of burnt bodies and smoke was suddenly a lot more noticeable. When I looked back to Neji, he was weeping. "My reason for existence is, I assume, dead. My one and only dream in life was for my family to accept me, and Hinata was the only one that ever did."

"Hinata watched you mutilate my arms." I narrowed my eyes.

"She didn't want you killed, so I didn't kill you. Nevertheless, you were too strong and too young to be that strong. Look at you now! You're so drunk on your own power that you've destroyed everything you've ever loved."

"That's not true." I didn't love anything anymore.

"It is. Your father, who praised you, loved you (though he wasn't good at showing it), and made you who you are. Your sister, who although she was forbidden from playing with you loved you anyway and couldn't kill you, refused to even fight you properly because she didn't want you to get hurt. Your home, your family, your place in the village."

"_You_ took that, when you _took my arms_!" I shrieked in protest. "They ignored me after that. Father loved her more. He even loved _you_ more! A pathetic branch family member. Over _me_. Hinata didn't care. She probably just felt guilty."

"More guilty than you'll ever know, and it wasn't even her fault. It was mine. I've known for a long time now that I made an awful mistake, and I'm sorry."

Oh my fucking shitballs. Did he just apologize?

He wasn't done talking though. "Hanabi, you were just a little girl. I couldn't have known how badly this would affect you. I thought that if I took away the Gentle Fist, you could have a normal childhood. That if Hiashi wasn't so hard on you, you'd be able to play with Hinata again, or even with me if you wanted. I thought that the Gentle Fist was a curse for you because it took away everything in your life that had meaning except for your prowess as a ninja. I did what I did for _you_, and because I needed to do _something_. What would you have done?"

I thought about it, but I didn't have an answer. When I had killed those children, I didn't think it was wrong. We were battling like real ninja, and I was winning. The end. Telling me not to do it was not going to end it. Killing me would have, but I don't think I need to tell you that I don't really want to die.

"I can tell by your face that you hadn't thought about that before. Well and so. Here we are. Every Hyuuga in the world is dead but the two of us and Naruto's children. What's your plan now?"

I frowned. This wasn't going how I'd planned it. Might as well be honest. "I was going to carve each and every one of your tenketsu out of your body for hurting me."

He didn't even blink. "Kind of thought so. I deserve it. Then what?"

Then what, indeed.

"Hadn't thought about that either, I suppose?" I shook my head. He sighed. "You're going to need to hide, and hide well. Cover your tracks, too. When Naruto is done beating himself up for what he did with you, he's going to hunt you for what you did to Hinata. You'll be #1 on the most wanted list, probably above Tobi."

"Why are you telling me this?" It didn't make any sense. Was he helping me escape?

He laughed, a humorless sound. "Hanabi, have you not been listening? I made my choice when I shoved my chakra into your hands and clipped your wings. I could have killed you or turned you in. If my loyalty was to the village, that is what I would have done. But heavens save me, I chose my family instead, and now they're all gone. Kill me, and start running."

I blinked. "You're actually asking me to kill you?"

"No," he corrected, "I am telling you to kill me. If you don't, _they_ will for helping you escape. And if they don't, I will. There's nothing left."

My head hurt. This was too much to process. I killed the rest because they hurt me and fought me. Neji had apologized and asked for death. Strangely, I couldn't do it. I'd longed to slice him up in bloody ribbons for ten years. I'd trained for this day just to be able to do exactly as he asked. I wanted this… didn't I?

Except that I didn't. What I had wanted was a family that loved me no matter what. From everything he'd just told me, I now saw that I did have it. He was right. I _had_ destroyed everything I ever loved. The realization numbed every shred of anger I'd harbored. I stood, though it was difficult. I walked over to my cousin. He didn't move to stand, merely watched me as I made the difficult trek to his side. When I was standing over him, he peered up at me, his eyes pleading. It broke the heart that I thought no longer existed in my chest. I squatted and peered into his eyes. "Neji. Love Hinata's children. Help them be better Hyuugas than we were. Tell Naruto I'm sorry. Live." His tears started anew as I kissed the curse mark on his forehead. "I'll miss you."

And then I knocked him out. If he was going to have a story to tell the Village about how I'd beaten him and escaped, he'd need to be unconscious for a while.

It was my last day ever in the Leaf Village. I never went back. If you're wondering what happened to me after that, too damned bad. I'm a missing-nin, a rogue ninja. It wouldn't do to give you any clues as to what I am up to and my whereabouts, after all.

I just hope that Neji's okay.


End file.
